Fake Good Samaritan jailed for 'terrifying' rape

A bogus Good Samaritan who turned a lift home into a nightmare rape ordeal in London for a teenager was jailed for eight years.

Helped by an unidentified accomplice, Kazimierz Sadowski, 32, forced himself upon the "terrified" 19-year-old.

London's Southwark Crown Court heard how the screaming victim was assaulted by both men.

Annabel Darlow, prosecuting, said the young woman, who had been left alone with the men after they dropped off her friends, twice tried to escape from the back seat.

But on each occasion she was dragged back. The first time Sadowski slapped her and, after her second bid for freedom, threatened to "break her neck. She was terrified," said counsel.

The young woman who had been enjoying a Sunday night out in Leicester Square when the two men offered her and the others a lift, was eventually released near her west London home. She went to the police the next day and explained one of her attackers had a serpent, crescent moon and stars tattooed on his shoulder.

Miss Darlow explained while the Polish Romany's DNA profile was obtained from her clothing at the time in July 1999, it was not until last year, when he was stopped for drink driving, that a match was obtained.

The tattoo his victim had described was found but when interviewed he repeatedly denied "forcing any woman to have sex". To back up his bogus protestations of innocence Sadowski then tried "to buy his way out" of trouble. He got an unidentified friend to contact his victim's mother in Poland and offer 15,000 euro (£13,853) for her daughter to withdraw her statement to police.

A jury unanimously decided Sadowski, of Essex Road, Barking, Essex, was lying and convicted him of three counts of rape and two of indecent assault. He was also ordered to sign on the sex offenders register indefinitely.